on some of the leading doctrines of caloric , &c. 381 
temperature rises. It is there proved, that from 210° to 150° 
Fahr. the specific heat of oil is to that of water as 597 to 
1000; and from 150 0 to 90° as 513 to 1000. The same pro- 
portional difference of relation is exhibited by the other two 
liquids. Now, were the phenomenon occasioned by the oil 
of vitriol, common oil, and oil of turpentine, increasing in 
their capacities for heat in a still more rapid ratio than water, 
we should undoubtedly expect, from the innate differences 
between the specific heats of these three substances, to find 
that they would move independently on each other, or at 
different rates. But their uniform advance together, while 
water alone varies in this respect, shows distinctly, that in the 
water resides the cause of the variation. This reasoning may 
be illustrated in many ways, but by nothing more clearly than 
the exploded astronomical system of the diurnal and annual 
movements of the sun and fixed stars; in support of which, 
very extravagant hypotheses had to be contrived. 
The single fact of the motion of the earth once admitted, 
reduced the Ptolemaic chaos to order. If, in like manner, we 
should suppose an increasing ratio in the specific heat of water, 
then we must also suppose a much more rapid increase in the 
ratios of the above three substances, although their individual 
specific heats are greatly inferior to that of water. Ought 
not that body, which has of all others the most decided relation 
to heat, or highest specific heat, to have also its ratio most 
decidedly or rapidly augmented ? In adopting the increasing 
specific heat of water, we must farther assume, that, however 
different the initial specific heats of the above three liquids may 
be, yet, while they possess all the same rate of increase, water 
alone has a different one ; an inadmissible supposition. All 
